


Expatriate

by ChiropteraJones



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Post-War, Yeerks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiropteraJones/pseuds/ChiropteraJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it was all over and his world was in ashes, Yanzin 849 of the Sulp Niar pool chose to remain on Earth. Can he remain unchanged, and what purpose does his life have now? </p><p>An exploration of the life of one of the yeerk nothlits remaining on Earth. Contains all OCs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New Life

Sometimes Yanzin thought he'd made the wrong decision when he chose to become human and remain on Earth, instead of returning to the homeworld under the watchful eyes of the Andalite fleet. Other times he was certain that he'd made the right one. Most of the time, though, he didn't know what he thought.

Yanzin missed his body. That might sound strange, to some people – Yanzin had known many yeerks who complained excessively about the limitations of their unhosted selves. He had never thought it was healthy.

Small and weak, it had nevertheless been his body. He'd spent the majority of his time in a host body not so different from what he had now, that was true, but the host's limbs had just been an extension of himself, not a replacement. Now there was no barrier between his real self and his 'host body', and it made him uncomfortable. Sometimes he felt as if he didn't even have a real self any more.

He tried not to dwell on it.

But he missed the pool. He missed the safety and security of it, the enveloping warmth, the feeling of being surrounded by everything that you needed to survive. He missed the almost effortless three-dimensional movement through the throngs of his fellow yeerks. He missed the soothing chorus of whistles, chirrups and ringing notes that always filled the pool as people spoke to each other. He missed the feeling of soaking up Kandrona. He missed it all.

On this particular afternoon, he was walking to work. He liked to do that; he felt better about things when he could feel wind on his face, see clouds and flowers and birds, feel the pleasant ache of leg muscles at the top of a hill. All of them things he would have had to give up, if he'd elected to stay as his true self.

He thought idly about what he would be doing now, if he had. He supposed he would be back on the home planet by now. Back to the pools, under lock and key. Nothing to do but swim and talk. No more cacophonous, terrifying battles to throw himself into with no guarantee he'd come out the other end; no more flying; no more walking and seeing. No more going through the motions of a life that wasn't really his. No more things to build or schedules to make or grand plans to set into motion.

There would still be Vissers, though. There were  _always_ Vissers. If those homeworld pools weren't already filled with more scheming and power-playing than the Andalites could measure, Yanzin would be very surprised indeed. There was probably a new Council of Thirteen – no, probably several, Yanzin corrected himself.

He wondered what the homeworld yeerks thought. The ones who had never left. He'd never met any of them.

In any case, Yanzin was certain that he would have been unbearably bored. And, still, unbearably lonely - he doubted he could have escaped that, no matter what choice he made. No amount of other yeerks could replace what he'd lost... or at least it felt that way. Yanzin knew it wasn't rational of him, but he couldn't help it. He could not imagine other friends.

Lost in his thoughts and in the melody of a particular bird that was floating across the morning, Yanzin didn't realise he was being followed across the car park and around into the alley between two buildings. He really should have known better. He had just enough time to register footsteps behind him, before a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

"I've seen you around a fair bit," the man who'd spun him said, grabbing his shirt. "What's your name again?"

"None of your business," Yanzin said, even though he knew it was pointless.

"I bet we can guess," the other man said. "It's got numbers in it, right?"

"You're not welcome here, slug," a third said.

So. Three of them. It didn't really occur to Yanzin to think it was unfair, but he did feel a cowardly trembling of fear. This wasn't the first time such a thing had happened; the last time had been pretty bad, but this was possibly going to be worse.

He didn't wait for them to get tired of their threats; the best defence against the creeping fear was to just cut past it all and throw a blow at the one holding his shirt. The man swore and let go. Yanzin swung his elbow into the face of one of the men behind him, kicked at someone else, aimed another blow...

Yanzin did know something about fighting – although most of his had been done as a hork bajir controller. He no longer had any weapons, though, and there were three of them anyway, so his efforts were more or less pointless. They left him lying against the wall, a dizzy ball of pain. He thought he heard one of them say "And that's for...", but he didn't catch the name that followed.

Once he was sure they were gone, he gathered his wits and sat up. His head was spinning, and it didn't seem like it was going to stop. Everything hurt.  _The pain is not yours_ , he reminded himself out of habit, pushing it away.  _It is only the host. You are not hurt. The pain is not important._ Thinking of it in that way had always helped. But of course, then he remembered that this pain actually  _was_  his, and it was his permanent body that had been damaged. He couldn't push it away then.

Not actually as bad as the last time, he told himself. It didn't really help. One of these days he was going to get killed, he just knew it, and quite probably nobody would even care.

What was he going to do now? It was hard to think. He couldn't just sit here. He wouldn't be able to get all the way back to the apartment, he managed to reason. Therefore, he should keep going and get to work.

His left wrist ached sharply, and between that and his dizziness, it was very difficult to get to his feet. He realised that he couldn't see properly; everything was fuzzy. He supposed it would pass.

He stumbled on towards work. Luckily he didn't have very far to go, but as he walked, he began to be seriously afraid that he'd taken permanent damage. The dizziness wasn't going away, and neither was the fuzziness.

He reached the back entrance. In a moment or so he'd have to go in, he supposed; he hadn't really thought about anything beyond getting here.

The door swung open, and a person came out.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed when he saw Yanzin. "What happened to you?"

Yanzin squinted at him, and thought he recognised him as a co-worker. It was the cheerful one; a short young man with floppy brown hair. Yanzin didn't know his name. "I was attacked," he said. "Obviously. If you could open the door for me, that would be nice. I really need to sit down."

"Shit," the man said, taking him in with round eyes as he swayed. "You look like you're about to collapse." He moved forward and sort of hovered, as if he wanted to offer a shoulder but wasn't sure it was such a good idea. He knew what Yanzin was, of course. That news hadn't taken any time at all to spread. Humans gossiped just as much as yeerks did, and with even less purpose. "And you're bleeding."

"Yes. I know," Yanzin snapped. "If you aren't going to help, go away."

"Um," the young man said, looking at him. "I think you need a doctor. Do you have a car?"

***

"I'm James Michelson, by the way," the young man said. "Call me James. I don't think we've really met. Your last name's down as 'Sulp Niar', right?"

Yanzin grunted. Water dribbled down his elbow and soaked into his knee as he sat in the front seat of James Michelson's car - he held a leaky zip-lock bag full of ice cubes to his forehead with his right hand. It wasn't really helping. "Yes. Pool name."

"You still dizzy?"

"Yes."

"Still can't see?"

"No."

"Shit. Well. I'm sure you're fine."

Yanzin closed his eyes. He wasn't sure of any such thing. Wouldn't it be miserable to be stuck in a permanently damaged body, on top of everything else? James had peered at his eyes nervously and muttered something about a concussion. He did remember a starburst of pain as his head had hit the brick wall. He thought he had been blind for a second there.

"So, Mr Sulp – look, that name's kind of unwieldy," James said apologetically. "Do you have a first name you wouldn't mind me using?"

Yanzin resettled the ice pack. "There's no need. Just say 'yeerk' or 'slug' and I'll know you're addressing me."

James sighed. "Mr Sulp Niar it is, I guess," he said. "Do people really – Never mind. Does this happen a lot to you?"

Yanzin took the icepack off his head, where it wasn't doing any good anyway, and put it on his left wrist. "It has happened before, yes." He stared out the windshield, watching the blurry coloured lights zooming past.

"I – I'm sorry. I guess."

Sorry? Yanzin thought scathingly. Don't lie because you think it's polite. You aren't sorry.

"I guess people are still angry," James said, in such a stupidly thoughtful way that it made Yanzin want to hit him. "It hasn't been all that long, you know."

Yanzin let out a furious breath. "Yes. They are," he said. "And it hasn't."

 


	2. Nostalgia

"Yanzin. I told you to go shopping today."

"What?" Yanzin said irritably. He was sitting in the small communal living room of the unit where he lived. It would be a bit much to call it a 'home', really, because Yanzin wasn't very fond of either the building or the people he had to share it with. He turned around to look at Minsath, awkwardly resting his one good arm on the back of the couch.

"Turn that stupid music off, Yanzin, I'm talking to you."

Reluctantly, Yanzin bent and switched off the shiny black CD player by his feet. He did enjoy some types of human music. It was soothing. He would never have attempted to explain that to Minsath, though - she would stare him down with imperious eyes and probably despise him for the rest of their interactions.

"What is it?" he said.

"You were supposed to go to the store and buy food today," Minsath repeated. "You didn't."

Yanzin sighed and let his head fall back against the cushions. "I forgot. I think it's understandable."

"Forgot!" She was livid. "What do you mean you forgot?"

"I just – it just didn't occur to me. I'm sorry."

"Well!" Minsath said sarcastically. "I'm sure we can rest easy, knowing that if Yanzin doesn't do something it's only because he forgot. It's not as if he has anything more important to be doing."

Her human morph was short, with smooth black hair and snapping dark eyes. He hadn't known her at all before morphing to human - he thought they had assigned people to dwellings more or less randomly.

"I'm sorry," Yanzin said. "It's difficult for me to carry things anyway." He lifted up his arm, encased in the white plaster cast, and waved it at her. "Why couldn't you do it?"

"Because I told you to do it."

"Yes, but why? It would be much easier for you to do it," Yanzin said. He didn't know why he was pressing the issue. You never won arguments with Minsath.

He wished that they'd just been allowed to live alone. Of course, that would have been more dwellings for them to find, so it was easier to randomly place them in groups of three or four in a family house. He could appreciate that it was much more efficient this way. That didn't make Minsath any less aggravating.

"I don't see why I should have to pick up the slack because you've incapacitated yourself," she said now. "Like the fool you are. Idiot."

This was a sentiment he'd heard a couple of times already. "Just drop it, will you?" Yanzin groaned. "I'm not the only one who's been beaten up. You've dealt with this too."

"It doesn't happen to me as much," Minsath said pointedly. "And I walk away without managing to break my arm and get a concussion. I have to wonder if you aren't doing something stupid to attract the attention. In any case, stop trying to change the subject," she said. "You disobeyed me."

He had disobeyed... ugh.

The very first thing Minsath had done - dumped in this unit newly human and dazed - was to ask Yanzin and Arodin what rank they'd been. They had both been significantly lower, of course.

"Disobeyed, Minsath?" he said wearily. He should have kept quiet. He should have bowed his head and apologised and weathered her bad temper. But he was tired, and irritated, and his arm ached still, and his skin itched under the cast. He hadn't really felt safe enough to go out much except for work. He had very little patience tonight and he didn't feel like meekly apologising to her as he usually did. "So what will you do? Are you going to have me shot? Have me demoted? Are you going to report me to your superiors for punishment, Minsath?"

There was a small sound as she put down whatever she was carrying. Her voice was quiet. "What was that?"

Yanzin gritted his teeth and stood. "You heard me just fine," he said, turning around. "What are you going to do about it?"

She stared at him from across the room, her eyes narrowed. She wore black, always. Her head was cocked at an arrogant angle, still used to the days when seven-foot-tall bladed hork bajir leapt to do her bidding. The unornamented, unarmoured human clothes didn't suit her. She said nothing.

"That's what I thought," Yanzin said, lightly, after a few long moments. "Nothing. You're not going to do anything about it. Because there isn't anything you can do."

"Insubordination, is it?" she hissed. "You think you can disrespect your superiors? You think you can blatantly disregard the- "

"I have no superiors," Yanzin shot back at her.

"Oh, I understand," she said sardonically. "Authority is chafing a bit, is it? You're sick of discipline and obedience. You'd rather be like the humans, with their inane notions of equality and their idle, weak willed disorganisation! Quite the cowardly little rebel we have here!"

"Authority?" Yanzin said. He threw his good hand out in the air. "What authority? You're not a Sub-visser any more, Minsath! You have no authority! You're just like me!"

"Like you?" She laughed shrilly. "No, my sad, pathetic little underling, I don't think I'll ever be like you. You're defeated. You're finished. The humans have managed to break you. You can't see the point to anything anymore and you want everybody else be like you!"

"I'm not pathetic," Yanzin said tightly. He found himself walking towards her. "You're hopelessly deluded. You pretend that you're in command here because you just can't bear the truth: that you're finished, you're a prisoner, and you only live on humanity's mercy! Just like everybody else!"

"You're a traitor," she said, stepping forward. "You betray everything we are by your weakness!"

"I'm no traitor!"

"Face it, Yanzin," she said, stabbing her finger into his chest. "You're just. Like. Them. You're weak. Your cowardice and disloyalty would bring the Yeerk Empire down!"

"The Empire?" Yanzin shouted. "It's already been brought down! It's dead! It's not coming back!"

"The Empire will never die while loyal yeerks still live!" Minsath said, her face blazing.

"You're crazy," Yanzin said. He shook his head and laughed bitterly. She was crazy. There was no point in arguing with her. "It's gone. We fought and we lost, and it's all over. It is gone."

He stepped back from her. She watched him with straight shoulders, her chest moving as she breathed, her hands in fists by her sides and her chin tilted up.

Yanzin backed away. He hugged his left arm to his chest; it ached dully. He hated that his voice wasn't quite steady. "I'm no traitor, because there's nothing to betray. You're not a Sub-Visser. The Empire is dead. And I'm not interested in playing along with this pathetic little re-enactment that you're clinging to."

He went to bed.

They couldn't live their lives thinking that the old days were going to come back, he told himself in the dark. What was left? Yanzin knew that a handful of ships had escaped with Kandronas on board, but the Andalite fleet was hunting those down even now. Even if they were to survive and threaten Andalite supremacy again, that would mean nothing for the yeerks on Earth. A reborn Empire light years away would change nothing for Yanzin.

I am not pathetic, he told himself. I am not broken. I'm just being realistic.


	3. Five Years Ago

The pool on the ship was crowded these days. The chatter of thousands and thousands of yeerks bounced off the metal walls; you couldn't move quickly through the upper levels without scattering people in your wake and drawing irritated complaints.

Around the edges, though, it was a little quieter. In a corner of the pool, right down near the floor, Yanzin and Trinir rested quietly beside each other. They weren't talking, nor even really thinking much, just basking in the kandrona that had managed to filter down this far.

Distantly Yanzin sensed a figure approaching them from the milling crowd up above and roused. Whoever it was, they were approaching at speed.

"Trinir, Yanzin!" Essal said as they got close enough. "I have been looking for you."

"Yes?" Yanzin said.

Essal settled down between them, forcing them to move apart a little. "I got it!" they announced, voice thrumming with excitement.

Got what?" Trinir asked.

"The place I wanted! The place in biotechnology! I'm on the list to start training as soon as I get a new host."

"Congratulations!* Yanzin exclaimed, rising a little. They entwined palps briefly in friendly greeting. *I thought you were sure to get it this time."

"I didn't think so,* Essal confessed. *I was worried that they wouldn't because I've been in combat for so long. I have already been trained up for something, why let me into a whole new field?"

"Even if the only reason you didn't change quicker is that they wouldn't let you,* Trinir grumbled. *That's great, Essal. You'll make a great scientist."

"This means a new host species, doesn't it?" Yanzin asked. Hork-Bajir were rarely given to yeerks on scientific assignments. It would have been a waste of their capabilities, and their hands and eyes weren't exactly suited for fine work. Usually scientists got mak or ongachic... but then again, there was this new species they were supposedly going to.

"Yes," Essal said. They darted away to scribe an excited circle around Trinir and Yanzin. "I hope to get one of the new ones! That would be much more interesting."

Interesting. To Essal, 'interesting' was just about the best thing that something could be.

"Just so long as it's not a taxxon," Trinir said. "I'm not spending time with you in host if you get a taxxon."

"I'm not either," Yanzin said.

Essal made a hurt whistling noise. "Some friends you are!"

"Sorry," Yanzin said. "As much as I love you, it's not enough to risk getting eaten to talk to you."

"I would not eat you," Essal said indignantly. "I think I have better control than that!"

Underneath the good-natured jibes, Yanzin was genuinely worried about the prospect. Taxxon-controllers had such a high death rate. And they weren't very... mentally stable. It was a stressful assignment. The thought of Essal getting stuck as one of them... Essal was too intelligent for such a fate. Surely it would not happen.

"I suppose we won't see you very much, then," Trinir said. "You have accepted and applied for the transfer out of our unit?"

"Yes," Essal said sadly. "I don't know how I will manage without you. Or how you will manage, without me to save you both from your own bravado. After all, I'm going to a relatively safe job. You're still in combat hork-Bajir."

"Maybe," Yanzin said. "The postings haven't come out yet. We don't know what we're doing. Maybe we'll get these new hosts too; they're supposed to be level five."

"Perhaps,* Trinir agreed. *Not much point speculating until the postings go up."

"Of course there is a point," Essal said. "I think I'll go look them up now. Maybe read up on this new level five species some more. Will you come?"

"I suppose," Yanzin said, humouring Essal. They rose up together; Trinir elected to stay behind. The dense, swirling cloud of yeerks swallowed them up with ease.


	4. Assistance

“So.” The human behind the desk shuffled the pieces of paper in front of her and looked over to cross-check against her computer screen. “You’re still staying in the same place?”

“Yes.”

The office was small and tidy. A nondescript picture of a beach hung in a frame on one wall; Yanzin was sitting in one of two simple chairs in front of the desk. Air-conditioning hummed and made the air feel dry and clinical. Yanzin just wanted to get this appointment over and done with.

“Still with...” She read from the file in front of her. “... Minsath 639 and Arodin 140?”

“Yes.”

She gave Yanzin a level look across the desk, then sat back in the chair. The letterhead on her papers said ‘Department of Alien Integration’. “How are things going?” she prompted.

“Fine,” Yanzin said. He stared straight ahead across the desk, his right hand on his knee, not deliberately making eye contact but not avoiding it either. Hopefully it was making her uncomfortable.

“Not having any problems?”

“No.”

She eyed his cast. “What happened to your arm?”

“It’s broken.”

“I can see that,” she said patiently. “How did it happen?”

“I was thrown into a wall.”

She pressed her lips together and began scribbling a note on Yanzin’s papers. “So, you were attacked? When did this happen?”

“Yes. A bit over a week ago.”

A frown appeared between her eyebrows. “Did you go to hospital? It’s not in your file, and they’re supposed to inform...”

“I did.” He watched her writing. “Guess they lost the paperwork.” He smirked, amused. _This is just like old times,_ he thought.. _Nobody knows what anybody else is doing._ In human society, though, people were less likely to be tortured and/or executed due to misfiled reports. Maybe they would have fewer mistakes if they did it the Yeerkish way. He considered making this observation aloud to the woman, but decided not to.

“Did you inform the police?”

“No.” Yanzin failed to see what that would have achieved. He didn’t imagine that the humans in the police force or the justice system were any more kindly disposed to his kind than the average human was.

“Would you like –”

“No.”

She sighed. “I really must insist on hearing the details, I’m afraid. Do you want to start at the beginning and describe what happened? Where were you?”

“No. Just leave it.”

She looked exasperated. “Yanzin, we are required to report these things. How are we supposed to help you if...?”

Yanzin scowled and stood. “You can’t help me with this. Even if you wanted to, which you don’t, really. Have you asked all of the questions on your little sheet of paper?”

“Yes, but – ”

“Then I think I can go now. Yes?” He stood waiting, staring straight ahead again.

“No,” she said, suddenly stern. “Yanzin, sit.” She pointed at the chair.

Yanzin shifted his gaze to stare down at her. So this was what he was reduced to? Taking orders from a pathetic human professional busybody?

“I have had just about enough of you,” she told him. “Helping you is difficult enough as it is, but every single one of you yeerks that I’ve dealt with today seems to have their heart set on making as much trouble as possible. You will sit and you will cooperate, like you agreed to do when we let you stay on Earth.”

Yanzin clenched his teeth. What could she really do to him? The human disciplinary system was practically toothless. He doubted he’d get any sort of serious penalty just for disobeying this pen-pusher.

 _You used to be better than this,_ an inner voice told him. He sat down.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice softening. “Start at the beginning, please.”

Yanzin sighed and recounted the event, as briefly and clinically as possible. The woman took notes and made a small tsk-tsk noise when he was finished.

He was so tired of this – of her and people like her pretending that they cared, wanting to know anything and everything about his life. The humans kept tabs on all of them – where they lived, what jobs they had. It was surprising Yanzin had as much freedom as he did. It was actually more freedom than he’d had his whole adult life.

He ought to be grateful.

“I’ll report this for you,” she said.

What did she want, thanks? “If that’s all, I’d like to leave now,” Yanzin said.

“Just a minute.” She sat back and looked at him. “Do you have anything else you wanted to talk about, Yanzin? Any problems, any developments? Met anybody new?”

“Not really.”

“It’s only that you’ve been assigned to me for the last year, and I don’t think anything at all in your circumstances has changed in that time.” She glanced at the screen. “Except for incidents like this one.”

Yanzin kept his face blank.

She sighed and hit a key on the keyboard sharply. “That’s all. Remember, your next appointment is on the third. Until next time, Yanzin.”

He didn’t say goodbye. He stuffed his free hand in his pocket as he walked through the waiting room. Someone else was sitting there; an apparently human youth slouched sullenly in one of the chairs. She and Yanzin made eye contact briefly as he passed. He didn’t smile and nor did she, but she nodded in acknowledgement.

He took the train out of the city. Much to his annoyance, the integration officer’s words had managed to get under his skin. He didn’t need or want her pity.

 _Nothing in your circumstances has changed_. He ran over the words in his mind as he watched the scenery slip past the train window. _It’s been how long now? Two years?_ Two years since his whole world had fallen, in more ways than one. _Has it really been that long? ‘Nothing in your circumstances has changed’._..

What was he supposed to have changed? Sure, he supposed he could have got a better job than he currently had. But what was the point to that? He wouldn’t enjoy it any more, and he wouldn’t be any better at it. The truth was, Yanzin didn’t think he had any skills that would be very useful in this new post-war world.

He could change where he lived. Maybe that was an idea. Still seemed pretty pointless, though.

“Hey! Um, Sulp Niar dude! It is you, right?”

Yanzin turned his head, startled. Who on earth would be...?

James was standing in the aisle at the end of the carriage, waving at him. He saw Yanzin’s face and smiled. “Oh, it is you! Sulp Niar, right?”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Yanzin muttered as James came down the carriage, dumped two large plastic shopping bags on the seat behind him, and fell into the seat beside Yanzin. Yanzin moved his arm out of James’ way automatically.

“Been shopping on my way home,” James said, breathlessly. “Hi.”

Yanzin stared at him. “What?”

James’ smile faltered. “You recognise me, right? I didn’t think your head was that out of whack...”

“My head is fine,” Yanzin said. “I know you. I just don’t know why you’re sitting next to me.”

The smile reappeared. “I wanted to ask how you were,” James said. “I just left you at the hospital, and I haven’t seen you at work. So... Broken?” He pointed at Yanzin’s cast. He had made noises about staying the other night, but Yanzin had thanked him brusquely and walked away.

“Why do people keep asking that?” Yanzin said. “No. I wear the cast because it’s so much fun. Yes, it’s broken. And yes, I had a minor concussion, in addition to a number of other minor injuries. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

“You’re OK now, right?”

Yanzin nodded slightly.

“Wow, it’s awful, you know, you getting attacked like that,” James said. “Kind of scary. I didn’t think our area was that bad for that sort of thing, you know?”

 _Scary? Don’t be ridiculous,_ Yanzin thought. _It’s perfectly safe for you._

“I still feel kind of bad about not staying with you,” James went on. “How did you even get home? I should’ve stuck around at least until I knew you were OK. It wasn’t a problem, like with work or anything.”

Yanzin was beginning to regret allowing James to approach him, although he wasn’t sure exactly he could have done to stop it. Well, what he could have done that was appropriate, anyway.

“I managed,” he said vaguely. He’d had to call Minsath to pick him up; she was the only one of them with a car. That hadn’t been a fun conversation, or a fun drive home.

“I told Alex where you were and everything, I hope that’s OK,” James said. “Concussion, huh? Damn.”

“Only a very minor one.”

“Still, that’s awful. I’ve never had a concussion before. Are you sure you should be around and about?”

“It’s gone now,” Yanzin said. “I’m fine.”

“Ah, I see. That’s good.”

James finally lapsed into silence. He turned and rummaged around in his shopping bags for a while, and Yanzin returned to looking out the window. He found himself returning to the integration officer’s words again. It was true: he had done nothing for the last two years. Even she could tell. Maybe everyone could tell. He thought of Minsath’s words: _The humans have managed to break you._

“Oh, hey, Sulp Niar...” James stumbled over the name again. “What stop do you get off at?”

“Yanzin,” Yanzin said irritably.

“Huh?”

He sighed. “It’s Yanzin. My name.”

The human grinned and stuck his hand out like he wanted Yanzin to shake it, and then looked at his cast and put it down. “Yanzin? Cool. James.”

Yanzin wondered if maybe he was broken. Was this what being broken felt like? He’d had a broken host before, so he really should be able to tell. Somehow everything was a lot more complicated looking at it from the inside.

He considered himself seriously. Perhaps he was.


	5. Four Years Ago

The cafe wasn’t very crowded. “Hey,” Yanzin said as he slid into the seat across from Essal.

Essal looked almost pathetically relieved. “Yanzin, thanks for coming.” Essal’s host at this time was a young male human with permanently tousled hair and rectangular glasses with thick black rims.

“It’s fine.”  Yanzin eyed Essal. He always looked a bit absent-minded in this host, but at the moment he looked downright dishevelled.

“I wish I hadn’t had my schedule shuffled about. I haven’t seen either of you for a week.” Essal fiddled with the salt and pepper shakers that were on the table. “What’s Trinir up to?”

“Trinir’s got guard duty in the factories,” Yanzin said, patiently. Essal already knew that, they’d talked about it. “But you didn’t want to meet up to talk about her, did you?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right... um. No.” Essal sighed and pushed the shakers away. “Sorry. I just... what with my schedule changing, and the deadlines and stuff, I haven’t had a chance to see you in the pool...”

Yanzin nodded. “If this is going to take a while, order coffee so they don’t kick us out,” he said.

Essal agreed, and went to buy something.

Yanzin waited for him to come back. As always, his human host’s thoughts and emotions existed in a layer underneath Yanzin’s own. He scarcely noticed them anymore, unless they were particularly strident. John Hall didn’t have much to say anymore; he was a lot quieter these days.

Idly, he checked up on what John was thinking. He found hatred for Yanzin and Essal. Loneliness, impotence. Nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing for Yanzin to be concerned with. He browsed through the memories of the past day; nothing concerning there either.

<Leave me alone,> John snarled in his head.

Essal returned with cardboard cups of coffee, and Yanzin dropped John’s memories instantly.

“The thing is, I’ve got a problem,” Essal admitted. “I just... I _really_ need to be able to talk to you about it.”

 Yanzin looked around the cafe; there was nobody within hearing distance. “What?”

“It’s about the project I’m on,” Essal said in a hushed voice. “See, the thing is – ”

“Hold on, Essal, your work is _high security_ ,” Yanzin interrupted, shocked. “You can’t _tell_ me about it!”

“I know, I know!” Essal protested. “I wasn’t going to tell you what we’re actually doing. I just need to tell you, in general terms, what’s happened. I can’t cope with this on my own.”

Yanzin rubbed his stubbled cheek nervously, a habit of the host’s that he’d picked up. He didn’t want anyone to have even a _suspicion_ that Essal was telling him things he wasn’t supposed to. Suspicions would get them both punished. “Fine,” he sighed. “No Empire secrets, okay?”

The corner of Essal’s mouth twitched up in a brief smile. “Got it.”

Yanzin glanced around the cafe again, nervously, and took a gulp of the too-hot coffee.

 Essal sighed, and gazed down at his own coffee. “The thing is... some pretty heavy stuff happened last week,” he said quietly. “We were behind schedule, dozens of cycles behind. I thought that they, that we, had it under control. But it turns out we didn’t. And then we had to give our progress report to Visser Three.”

He was silent for a long time. “Essal?” Yanzin ventured after a while.

Essal leaned forward and rubbed his face with his hands, pushing fingers under his glasses. “Imila’s dead. My superior,” he said, his voice muffled. “I’m... I’m kind of the second-in-charge of the project now.”

“You’re _what_?” Yanzin exclaimed. He glanced around the cafe and lowered his voice. He hadn’t realised that was a possibility. “Why? You haven’t been there long enough.”

“I don’t know! It just sort of happened.”

<Good,> John said. <Maybe he’ll die next. I’d like to see you cry for him. Do you cry? Yeerk?>

Essal moved his hands off his face and stared at Yanzin between them. His eyes were wide. “Yanzin, what am I going to do? The project isn’t finished. We’ve got more time now, we got an extension, but what if we don’t get it done in time?” His voice was rising and wavering.

“I...” Yanzin felt helpless. “Oh for... Look, calm down, it’ll be all right...”

“It might not be!” Essal said. He buried his head in his hands. “Why’d they have to kill Imila?” he groaned. “She was the one who really knew what we were doing. I’ve got her notes, and I’m reading them, but... How can we do this without her in charge? _How am I supposed to do this_?” he demanded of Yanzin, looking up.

 “You’re supposed to because it’s your job,” Yanzin said. “Come on, Essal, you’re smart.”

“No, I’m not,” Essal said, still with his face in his hands. “A smart person wouldn’t have gotten in so far over their head. I’m an idiot. I almost deserve whatever’s coming to me–”

“No, you aren’t,” Yanzin said. “Listen –”

“It’s too much, it’s way too much...” 

“You can do it.”

“I can’t,” Essal moaned. “I can’t do it, and they’ll shoot me.” His hands gripped his hair. Yanzin could see his knuckles standing out against the skin. “I can’t... Yanzin, I can’t deal with this!”

“Hey, hey, whoa!” Yanzin said. He leaned across the table, pulled Essal’s hands away from his head and pinned them down on the table with his own. “Stop it. Get a grip, Essal.”

“I’m really scared,” Essal whispered.  

“I know,” Yanzin said. “I know.”

<Do you have to do this in public?> John said harshly. <Make me look like a damn fag.>

At least Essal seemed to be a little quieter. Yanzin squeezed Essal’s hands and let go. “You’ll think of something,” he said. “You’re smart. You’re the smartest yeerk I know, you make me look like a hork-bajir when it comes to this stuff.”

Essal smiled, but dully. “I’m not really,” he said. “Sorry about that. I’m kind of losing it.” 

“Well, you can’t afford to,” Yanzin said firmly.

“Yeah. I know. I’m trying.” Essal sighed and drank some of his coffee. “Visser Three shouldn’t have killed Imila,” he said, suddenly, forcefully. “He shouldn’t have. You say I’m smart? She was something else. She was a great scientist. An exemplary yeerk. It’s crazy to throw her away.”

“Shh.” Yanzin looked around uneasily.

“Don’t give me that, Yanzin, there’s nobody here,” Essal said impatiently. Yanzin was a little surprised by how blasé he was about saying that kind of thing. He’d changed over the last year. 

“Can we just not,” Yanzin muttered. 

Essal frowned. “But, see, that’s the thing that gets me. It’s just not smart. I’m only stating facts: it was a really stupid thing to do, to execute Imila and expect us to get the project back on track without her.”

Yanzin shrugged and said nothing.

“I don’t think I’m really cut out for this job after all,” Essal said miserably, his head hanging. “I mean, like, the work itself is fine, and I’m good at it, but there’s so much pressure. All the time.”

“I guess that’s just the way of it,“ Yanzin said. “Less risks in some ways, more in others.”

“Yeah.” Essal gave another half-smile. “Funny, but between Trinir and I, it seems like you lucked out and got the safest job, doesn’t it?”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Yanzin said. A lot of his work involved just living John Hall’s life. He was an office worker; it wasn’t particularly demanding or dangerous.  “We didn’t think that was going to happen.” He bit his lip and looked away. He was totally powerless to help his friend out with this one. It had been better when they were all together.

“Hmm. Yeah.” Essal sighed again, heavily. “Look, Yanzin, thanks. I’m not expecting you to come up with any solutions here. I just needed to tell someone. You’ll tell Trin when you see her?”

Yanzin nodded.

“I guess that’s all you guys can really do for me,” Essal said. “Just, you know. Be aware. Don’t be surprised if I die.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Essal smiled. “Thanks, Yanzin. Believe it or not, you’ve helped me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this sitting in a file for ages, because I wanted to put it after some of the other flashback stuff. But clearly that chapter isn't coming any time soon, so I figured I should just post this since it's done and give up the pretense these flashbacks have any sort of order to them. It doesn't matter a great deal.


	6. Anniversary

Yanzin entered the kitchen on the morning of the twenty-third and nearly backed out of it again. Minsath was at the counter making coffee. At the table, Arodin was dropping toast crumbs all over a newspaper.  As if the day wasn’t likely to be bad enough already, this was going to be one of those mornings when they were all in the kitchen at the same time. Yanzin hated when that happened - it was like some horrible facsimile of a human family breakfast.

Nobody said anything as Yanzin sat heavily with his breakfast.

“Big day today,” Arodin remarked. He slid the paper across the table. “Third anniversary.”

Yanzin said nothing. He pushed the paper away.

“Yes, so be careful,” Minsath said. “You’ll both be back here straight after work.”

Arodin shrugged. “There won’t be problems. It’s not like I flash my ID at people.”

Neither of them really knew what Arodin got up to in his off hours. He just showed up in the early hours of the morning and crashed in his own room, or sometimes the living room, often intoxicated with some human substance or other. Yanzin had thought that Minsath had given up on trying to police his behaviour. He was a lot better at ducking her than Yanzin was – but he didn’t usually outright contradict her.

“That was not a request, Arodin, it was an order,” she said, her voice steely. “Nobody wants a repeat of last year.”

“I am very confident in my ability to not be murdered,” Arodin said, buttering another piece of toast.  “Face it, I’m a lot better at blending in than either of you.” He pointed the butter knife at Yanzin. “It’s _him_ you should be warning to stay inside.”

“I did,” Minsath said. “Don’t push me, Arodin. You will be –”

Arodin held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I will come home straight after work, cross my heart.”

Minsath regarded him briefly, and then turned away. “See that you do.” She poured the coffee into a thermos. “You could stand to blend in a little _less_. I look at you and I don’t even – ” She cut herself off, screwing the lid down with a focused intensity. “Don’t buy any more of that trash.”

She grabbed the coffee and her bag and stamped heavily out the door.

“Did she mean the paper, or alcohol, do you suppose?” Arodin asked conversationally. “Or something different? I buy a lot of trash, it’s hard to –”

“I can’t believe she bought that,” Yanzin said. “You have absolutely no intention of coming home until two in the morning, do you?”

“Self-delusion is an incredible thing, my friend,” Arodin said.

Yanzin shook his head. He ate mechanically for a while, pretending not to notice Arodin looking steadily at him.

“You wouldn’t have that cast right now if you put a bit more effort into pretending to be human, you know.”

“I’m not human,” Yanzin said sullenly. “And I don’t want to be.”

“I’m not saying you have to try to _be_ human, just pretend to be one when it suits you,” Arodin said, rolling his eyes. “Would it kill you to smile once in a while? Jeez. Didn’t you have a human host? How the hell did you manage that?”

“I pretended during the invasion,” Yanzin said. “We’re not invading now. So I see no point.”

“Don’t you? You don’t see the point in trying to blend in just a little bit?”

“Right. Blending in,” Yanzin said, flatly. He was being drawn into the argument despite himself. “I guess that’s all you do, is it?”

“Better than painting a target on my chest like you do. Maybe if you made an effort to make a friend or two, somebody would have your back. Maybe if you acted a bit less like every human psycho with a chip on their shoulder’s idea of an ex-yeerk, you might actually find something that you, horror of horrors _, enjoy doing_.”  

“Why do you care how much I blend in?”

 Arodin shrugged. “All right, you got me. I don’t. Maybe I’m just tired of you and your boring, long face.”

“Have I done something to bother you lately?” Yanzin asked. “Because I seem to recall that we mostly ignore each other these days. I’d kind of like that back while I eat.”

 “Yeah, Yanzin, you’re bothering me lately. Right now, in fact.” He leaned back, paper and breakfast forgotten, and tilted his head while he looked at Yanzin. He snorted. “You come in here with your long face and arctic silences, and you expect us to tiptoe around you because of what date it is? You think this is your own personal tragedy, right? Ever think that maybe everybody else has just as much of a reason to be upset?”

“You’re the only one who mentioned the date,” Yanzin said. His hand made a fist on the table.

“Right, because you had _no_ idea. Hadn’t even crossed your mind. Tell you what, Yanzin, I’ll back off you if you can give me a convincing smile,” Arodin said. His own smile was bitter. “Just one. Humour me.”

Yanzin responded with a Hork-bajir curse that felt clumsy in his mouth, and stood. “Yeah, well, you try not to piss yourself when you come home drunk out of your mind tonight,” he snapped. “And stop waving this in my face.” He snatched up the newspaper and retreated to his own room.

Arodin kept talking. “It’s been three years, Yanzin. You can damn well get over it.” The front door slammed, and he called the last few words through the screen door. “The rest of us have!”

Yanzin looked down at the newspaper in his hands. THE WORLD CELEBRATES. THE WORLD REMEMBERS. Some stupid over dramatic silhouette picture. He opened it, and found a full-page spread about ‘our heroes’.

How many stupid ceremonies and events did they need to ‘remember’ this? Did they really think anybody was in serious danger of forgetting who had won and who had lost?

There was nowhere to throw the paper away in his room, so he rolled it up tightly and tucked it away somewhere, anywhere. Better get going or he was going to be late.

If Arodin was what ‘getting over it’ looked like, Yanzin didn’t want to.

 

                                                                                                ***

“Morning, Yanzin!”

The co-worker, James, had taken to greeting Yanzin by name every time they were on shift together.  It was like he was pleased with himself for remembering it. At least today he hadn’t said ‘good’ morning. Just ‘morning’ Yanzin could sort of live with.

“Yeah. Morning,” he mumbled. “I guess.”

“How’s the arm?” James asked him, leaning on a wall beside him. They worked in a store that sold a lot of things, but mostly electronics, machines, that kind of thing.

“Tolerable. The cast’s supposed to be coming off soon.”

“Great! I’m sure it’s driving you nuts. There’s Alex, quick, look busy.” James grinned at him and ducked away.

Alex nodded unsmilingly at him as she passed. Was there a touch more contempt in the set of her mouth than usual today? Hard to tell. He preferred her attitude of cool professionalism anyway.

The morning inched past, littered with small events that set his teeth on edge. Some were normal things that he wouldn’t usually have thought twice about; others were more topical.

For ten minutes or so in the middle of the morning, a small child ran loose in the laptop section. She was waving a toy raygun and making horrible high-pitched noises that made Yanzin want to strangle her.

“Daddy! Daddy I’m an andalite!” she shrieked. “Tshoo! Tshoo!”

Usually he would have been able to just ignore it. That was proving more difficult today.

“Die, yeerks! Tshoo!”

James sidled past some people and hunkered down to talk to the little girl, a grin on his face. Yanzin didn’t hear what James said, but he was just glad somebody had made her shut up. 

Somebody was reading the newspaper in the back room at lunchtime, so Yanzin took his lunch outside and ate it alone, sitting on the curb in the garden.

 “Alright,” he was saying dully, not too much later, walking with another co-worker and a customer. “I’ll go find it. Just a minute.”

He paused. Somebody had switched the display televisions that lined the back wall from their usual over-saturated children’s movies to something different.  It was live coverage with the sound turned off; something about a celebratory parade. Half of an announcement scrolled past at the bottom of the screen: _…combined human and andalite victory over the yeerk fleet on_ …

_Who put that on?_ he thought. Were they deliberately…? No. No, that was a stupid thought. Nobody was trying to mess with Yanzin; nobody here cared enough about Yanzin to do something like that. They were just being humans.

“Er… Yanzin?”

He realised he was staring at the screens. “Yeah,” he said absently. “Sorry… I just...”

And then he forgot what he was saying, because of what came up on screen next. Spandex-clad teenagers dismounting from an army truck, conferring with bent heads. Someone in uniform deferring respectfully to them, the leader shaking his head and turning to the camera. It was old footage. The young human talking was scarcely more than an adolescent – and besides, Yanzin had seen this clip before. It was one of the earliest. 

And there he was, staring out of the television screen, talking so calmly, with a planet hanging on his words. Their murderer.  Yanzin knew what he would be saying.

“My name is Jake Berenson. I –”

Yanzin was unprepared for the hatred that suddenly filled him. What he wanted, more than anything, was to pull out a beam weapon and shoot at it. Failing that, kicking the screen to little dark bits would have sufficed.

Instead he walked around the customer service desk, walked to the wall and yanked hard on the power cord. That bank of screens flickered and died.

“Hey,” Alex said. “Yanzin, what the hell are you…” She trailed off.

“I can’t do this,” Yanzin said bluntly. “I’m calling in sick. Don’t expect me back today.” He turned his back, and walked away. It felt like running.

He didn’t go anywhere. He had always liked walking, so he walked until his fingers stopped itching for a dracon beam. By that point, it was just easier to keep on walking, turning left and right more or less randomly as he met intersections, than make the decision to do anything else.

It seemed impossible that it had been three years since that day on the pool ship. And, what, two and a half since being trapped like this? Two and a half years living surrounded by humans. Two and a half years of them simultaneously trying to force him into their world and making it very clear they didn’t actually want him in it. Three years since Yanzin stopped being a soldier of the Yeerk Empire and started being… whatever this was.

News had been hard to come by in the overcrowded pool after the battle on the Blade Ship, filtering slowly in with latecomers. There had been dozens of conflicting versions of what had actually happened.

After he’d been given his new body, he had gone to the public library and found newspapers, press releases, TV shows, interviews. He’d found the ones that were relevant and reread or rewatched them a dozen times – it had hurt him, but he couldn’t stop.

So he knew what had happened. Better than any human walking the streets, certainly. He remembered the part that had slowly phased out of general knowledge. How could he not?

An entire pool of unhosted yeerks. A half hour’s difference in feeding shifts and he would have been there with them. That was the way it probably should have gone.

There was a park not too far away from Yanzin’s work, where he sometimes went during breaks or if he didn’t feel like going home yet. Not the fanciest of parks, but it did have several good-sized trees (for Earth, anyway). Today his aimless walking brought him by it, so he detoured.

Aside from the trees, the park also had a memorial to the yeerk war.

He regarded it with narrowed eyes. It wasn’t anything too impressive; a block of stone with a metal plaque. There was something like it in many parks. This one didn’t have a list of names, but a lot did.

There were no memorials for his side, so far as Yanzin knew. He’d certainly never seen one.

_They would be vandalised anyway_ , he thought, _and then they would have been removed. So it’s probably for the best._ But even so.

There was no ugly stone-and-glass monument with yeerkish names. Trinir and Essal’s names weren’t written down anywhere at all so far as he knew – Empire computer systems from the pool ship, maybe, if they hadn’t been wiped.

He had a sudden urge to write their names somewhere – even just at home, scribble them on pieces of paper. Because they deserved better. They deserved to have some kind of mark on the world, some sign that they had existed.

_I’m it_ , he thought. The three of them had never really made other close friends, beyond work _. My memory’s the only record of them. And a few months after I’m gone, probably nobody will think of any of us every again._

None of that was precisely the fault of the humans, or of the war. Surely it would have been the same no matter when they had died. Everybody ended up as dust.

But the cause – that was real, that had mattered. Hadn’t it? Didn’t it? Yanzin would have been lying if he’d said that three years of drifting on a hostile planet had left him with a fierce loyalty to the Empire. But if he let it go, what had been the point of anything?

“This is stupid,” he muttered to himself.

He left the park. He should probably have gone back to the house he shared with Minsath and Arodin. But without really thinking about it he turned away from that route and circled around, back to the one he’d been following before the detour to the park.

He didn’t pay attention to the time. But at some point or other, he realised it had grown too dim to see the fences and trees ahead of him. He looked around to find that night was falling.

Instincts flickered at the back of his mind. Humans didn’t like the dark. The dark wasn’t safe. The human brain wanted him to go home.

To hell with what the human mind wanted. Yeerks weren’t afraid of the dark. He kept walking.

Car headlights swung around the corner behind him, lighting the curb and the path briefly. Cars had been driving past him all afternoon, of course, but this one slowed down as it approached him from behind.

He kept walking, listening to it crunch onwards. It passed him but kept slowing down until it came to a stop. He put his hand in his pocket and went to walk past it. After all, just because they’d stopped didn’t mean they were after him. Maybe they lived here.

The car window rolled down.

“Fuck, not you,” Yanzin said.

James cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hey.”

Yanzin said nothing.

“I saw you walking. You left work hours ago, have you been out here ever since?”

“What’s it to you?”

James looked at him searchingly for a while, and then turned the car off. The coarse hum of the engine died away. He opened the door and got out. “Look, um. I know this is probably a bad time,” he said. “I mean – the way you acted back at work, it seems…. pretty obvious this is a difficult day for you.”

“No,” Yanzin lied. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

James gave him a sidelong glance. Pity. His careful phrasing reminded Yanzin strikingly of the Integration Centre people.

“What’s an anniversary to me?” Yanzin said, with a shrug. “A human tradition. What does it matter to me that this insignificant little mudball has gone around its sun three times?”

“I guess... that’s true,” James said. He gave a quick, embarrassed smile. “But anyway, it’s kinda dark. I could give you a ride home, if you want?”

“You don’t even know where I live. It could be a long way out of your way.”

James shrugged. “I’m not in any massive hurry. And you walk from work, right, so you’ve gotta be close.”

“How do you know that?” Yanzin said flatly. “I could walk from the bus stop. Are you spying on me?”

“No-oo,” James said, giving him that look. The one that said there was something wrong with him. “Just noticed that you were walking the other week when you got jumped. That’s all. Do you want a lift?”

Oh. Good. He could go home, and stare at the wall for a while, alone, doing nothing. And then Minsath would come home and he could continue to do nothing while listening to her move around the apartment, and pretend not to be concerned about where Arodin was.

He shivered. He hadn’t noticed while he’d been walking, but it was cold. “Why are you offering?” he asked. “We’re not friends, you know.”

James sighed and leaned on the car door. “Well, I know you said you don’t care about the anniversary,” he said. “But everybody else might. You got attacked walking here not so long ago. If I drive off and it turns out you got beaten up again, or stabbed, or threw yourself in front of a train, I’m going to feel responsible.”

“Feel responsible?” Yanzin repeated. “You aren’t responsible. Feelings don’t factor into it. Besides, I don’t want to go home.”

James stared out into the twilight. “So you’re just going to walk around. All night.”

Yanzin shrugged.

“Well… if you don’t want to go home… this evening some friends of mine were going to meet up for a drink and maybe dinner,” James said. “That’s where I’m heading now. If you want, you could come along?”

“Should you be inviting strangers?” Yanzin said _. Should you be inviting yeerks?_

“Oh, yeah, it’ll be fine,” James said, waving a hand. “It’s kind of a fortnightly thing? People bring new folks all the time.”

Yanzin looked up at the sky while he thought.

“Okay. Sure. Whatever.” If he was taking the path of least resistance, why not really go for it? Sure. Fine. He could go drinking with a human. Why not.

He decided that he was over his bout of misery. It was just some stupid human tradition, like he’d told James, why should something as meaningless as an anniversary make it worse? Let the hosts say and think what they liked, it didn’t matter to him. He could go and be around some humans for a while and it wouldn’t bother him at all.

 He was cold and tired of wandering around anyway.

“Seriously?” James looked startled. “Are you sure? I mean, that’s great.”

“Regretting the offer already?” Yanzin said dryly.

“No, not at all! Hop in.”

 


	7. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should mention, the idea of Yanzin and James going out for a drink came at least partially from Derin's remix of the first 5 chapters, although I took it in a different direction.

Yanzin followed James through a set of glass doors, and took a moment to steel himself against the noise and light inside. _What are you even afraid of, Yanzin? Nobody here knows what you are._ He realised he was still wearing the work name-badge, with ‘My name is Yanzin’ on it. He took that off and slipped it into a pocket. _There you go. Indistinguishable from any human drone having a drink after work._

Like it or not, he was going to have to live surrounded by humans for the rest of his life. Confining himself to a little track running between work, the apartment, the grocery store and integration check-up appointments for all of it wasn’t going to work - Arodin and the integration officer were right as far as that. He felt a grim sort of resignation at the prospect of 50 or so years of this. _Might as well get used to it._

“So,” James said at his elbow. “I can’t see anyone… I guess nobody else is here yet. Do you drink? I’ll buy you one while we wait.”

“No, I don’t,” Yanzin said. He thought for a few moments. “I’ll drink, but I can pay.”

James gave him a slightly startled look. “Oh. You don’t have to if you don’t – I only offered – I mean, I’m driving anyway, so it’s not like…”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

The staff member at the bar asked for ID, and Yanzin slid his Integration Centre ID card across to them. Name, number, address, age, and the area of the city he was allowed to be in. _So much for anonymity_ , he thought.

The bar tender gave him a slightly contemptuous glance but made no comment as they collected their glasses.

“Come on, we’ll wait over here,” James said, heading for a collection of stools at a tall table in the corner. After they sat down, he watched as Yanzin sipped his beer dubiously. “You don’t drink?”

“Not usually, no. It always struck me as a rather pointless activity.” Yanzin swallowed a mouthful of the alcohol and wondered what Arodin saw in it. Not taste, apparently. “My flat mate’s a drunk,” he said conversationally.

James glanced at the glass and back to him. “Um. I’m sorry, that must be… worrying for you.”

“Yeah. I guess so,” Yanzin said. “It’s a pain in the neck.” When exactly had Arodin slipped into being something Yanzin had to worry about, in an odd sort of way? He hadn’t been that bad in the first year or so.

“Like I said, don’t feel like you have to drink if you don’t like it,” James said. “The rest of the gang probably will, but it doesn’t make much difference to them. They’re nice people, you’ll get along – I hope you’ll get along. You don’t have to say much if you don’t want.”

“Why are you so friendly to me?” Yanzin asked bluntly. “Do you not understand who I am? What I am?”

James ducked his head. “I know what you are,” he said. “A yeerk. But a nothlit one.”

Something in that statement annoyed Yanzin. “An enemy soldier,” he said.

“Well. The war is over,” James said. “You live here now.”

“Fantastic,” Yanzin said. He tapped on the cast with his fingernails. “The war is over.”

James looked uncomfortable. “Well. I’m…  not like those people. I guess. I mean, like I said, it’s peacetime now, and you guys seem to be here to stay. Sooner or later, somebody has to start making overtures of peace to you.”

“And that somebody is you, is it?”

James grinned self-deprecatingly. “Yes. That somebody is me. I’ve always believed that… deep down everybody is more or less a decent person, and if only people would, you know, reach out now and then, we’d probably find a lot of people we used to hate are not so much different to us. All that cheesy stuff.” He raised his eyebrows at Yanzin. “Here is the part where you tell me I’m a disgustingly naïve optimist. I’m used to it.”  

Yanzin shrugged with one shoulder. “Unsurprising, I guess. You’re human, you live in one of the most affluent and peaceful nations on your planet. You reached maturity a handful of years ago, and you haven’t had to deal with any serious consequences or dangers in those years.”

James sighed and rolled his eyes a little. “So how old are you, then? And if you say you’re, like, two hundred of ‘my years’ old, fair warning, I am not going to believe you.”  He made little finger quotes around ‘my years’.

A corner of Yanzin’s mouth twitched. “Not that old, no.” He did the conversion in his head. “Twenty-seven years, something like that.”

James slapped the table with one hand. “Hah! That’s not THAT much older than me.”

“That’s pretty old, as rank and file go,” Yanzin pointed out. “You won’t find many who are much older. I’m of the second generation out of the home world, and first gen are pretty hard to find these days.” He took a swallow of the drink and made a vague gesture with one hand, trying to demonstrate the generations. “We left the home world with three ships full of first gens, right. Then there was a big population jump when we found the hork-bajir world. That’s us. Of course, now there are all the little new gens around. The Earth force was lousy with them.”

“You were born on the hork-bajir world?” James said, his eyes widening. “What’s it like? Do you remember?”

“Do I _remember_?” Did he remember the first place he’d ever seen apart from the inside of a shipboard tank? Did he remember that world of shocking colours and towering depths that seemed to go on forever, a world whose scale made every world he’d been on after feel unimpressive? “Of course. I had basic training there. I was there for years.”

“What’s it like?” James repeated, nursing the drink and looking fascinated.

So Yanzin kept drinking, even though the taste didn’t seem to get any better, and tried to describe the giant valleys and trees of the hork-bajir home world to James. The taxxon and mak planets he’d found rather boring, so didn’t spend long on them before going back to the hork-bajir world.

“Everything there is green,” he was saying, a little while later. James’ friends seemed to be running late, since there was still no sign of them. “Except the bottom of the canyons. Those are bluer than anything I’ve seen since. Bluer than shredder fire. Bluer than earth. The world is… brighter.”

“Why are the canyon floors blue?” James looked puzzled.

Yanzin shook his head. “I don’t know. They just were. They had always been blue. You didn’t go into them… you could go days at a time without even touching the ground. One time we went up to the highest part of the canopy…”  

“How high’s that?”

Yanzin hesitated, uncertain. “Oh - Taller than your skyscrapers. Much taller. I don’t know numbers.” Essal would have known, but he didn’t. “You call these things on Earth trees. Trust me, they’re not. I haven’t seen a tree worthy of the name the entire time I’ve been here. Or a forest. Or a canyon, either, come to mention it.” He smiled. “The first time I saw the planet from orbit, I… you can’t imagine. The valleys are this beautiful dark rich green, and it’s like all this – life – is just tucked away into little hollows safe inside the greyness. A crevice that stretches across half the diameter of the whole world.”

“Wow,” James sighed, his chin on one hand. “The Hork-bajir world sounds incredible. I wish I could go to another planet some time. Maybe there’ll be tourism flights in a few years, what do you think?”

“Mm,” Yanzin said, noncommittally. He looked down. “You know, it… doesn’t necessarily all look like that anymore. The mines tore some of it up before I left, and for all I know they kept going.” The thought made him more than a little annoyed with himself.  

“Oh.” James looked saddened. “I hope there’s still enough left. It must be awful for the hork-bajir.”

“Well, quantum plague did for a lot of them, and some of the rest are staying here, so even if it’s mostly gone they’ll probably still all fit,” Yanzin said, turning away.

James didn’t respond to that. He cleared his throat after a moment. “Hearing about other planets and other species is so interesting,” he said. “I want to take a course on it next semester, if I have room.”

“Is that why you keep hanging around me?” Yanzin said bluntly. He looked sideways at James. “I’m some sort of novelty to you, aren’t I? _That’_ s it.” That made a lot more sense, now.

“No!” James protested. “I mean – when you put it like that it sounds awful.”

Yanzin smirked into his glass. “Well, what does that tell you?”

“I don’t – no, look, that’s not why I’m here.” He looked upset. “I didn’t – look, okay, I haven’t been _hanging around you_. I just – you seem like you need some friends. That’s all. I asked you to come because you seem so lonely. I’m trying to help.”

“Why?” Yanzin said. “Why do you care?”

“Maybe – maybe I just want to reduce a little bit of the suffering in the world,” James said. “It’s not like it costs me anything.”

Yanzin snorted. “It always costs you something,” he said. “It’s costing you time. Effort. The chance you might get your head kicked in. You have no idea, do you?”

Yanzin became aware that the noise level in the bar was rising and turned around to look for the source. There was a small television in the corner of the room, and someone had turned the volume up. A fanfare of music made the people fall quiet and turn.

_Oh, no_ , Yanzin thought when he saw the flags, the crowds of people on the TV, the stage.

“Oh, it’s the anniversary service,” James said from beside him. “Looks like it’s started already. I think there’s a whole memorial program on TV tonight.”

A young man with brown hair was walking across the stage. Broad-shouldered and in his early twenties, utterly ordinary.

A wave of cool light-headedness seemed to pass over Yanzin, leaving him feeling distant and hyper-focused but faintly sick. He could have turned his gaze away from the television screen but he didn’t.

“This anniversary marks the day we fought off a foe more deadly, more vicious, and more ruthless than any humanity has faced before,” the young man said. “I know… as much as any of you… what facing them cost us. The things they took from us.” For an instant he stared at the podium in front of him, and his face, grave before, looked haggard. The cameras cut to a close up on his face as he looked up. “But we won. And what we – ”

Him. Again. Yanzin wondered, a little manically, if someone was following Yanzin around making sure that everywhere he turned today he saw that human.

“Jake Berenson. He’s the one you freaked out about back at work. Isn’t he?” A note of doubt crept into James’ voice.

Yanzin’s hand tightened on the glass, and he contemplated whether or not it’d break on James’ face.

“Yeah. That’s him,” he said instead. “Jake the Yeerk Killer.” He lifted his glass to James in a sarcastic toast, and downed a mouthful. Liquid slopped around the corners of his mouth; maybe he wasn’t as coordinated as he should have been.  He swiped at it with the heel of his hand.

James hadn’t drunk. “I never realised how that sounded,” he said in a hushed voice. “People don’t call him that very often.”

“We do,” Yanzin said. “He proved himself very good at it.” The rest of the room had fallen mostly silent. People were standing, watching the screen with something akin to reverence. Like they were observing a minute’s silence or attending a funeral.

_“…_ pay tribute to those who lost their lives in defence of our most _…”_

“And now I’m _really_ not sure it’s a good idea for you to be drinking,” James said quietly, looking at Yanzin’s glass. “Especially if you don’t usually drink a lot. How drunk are you?”

_“…_ the victims of the most abominable…”

“I don’t know,” Yanzin confessed. He spoke loudly, trying to drown out the TV. “How do you know if it’s working?”

“You look kinda drunk to me. Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested you come...”

Yanzin shrugged with one shoulder. “Bit late for that.”

“Shut up,” someone hissed at them. “Have some respect.”

Yanzin put the glass down, carefully. His fingers suddenly seemed thick and clumsy.

“I will pay your dead,” he said slowly and loudly, “The same _respect_ that you pay mine.” He turned around and half-slid off the stool. Somehow his hands had made fists.

“Oh God,” he heard James mutter from behind him.

Yanzin raised his eyes to meet the gaze of the rest of the room. The people close enough to catch what he’d said were muttering and staring; he couldn’t tell who’d spoken. Outside that ring a few gave him a disapproving or curious glance.

If Yanzin had felt surrounded before, in the store, it was a thousand times worse now. But he found that he didn’t care. All his instincts were wailing at him like emergency sirens, and he didn’t care. He just did. Not. Care.

He looked around for the person who’d told him to have respect, but he couldn’t see them.

 “…celebration of the freedoms their sacrifice has…”

“Who said that?” he asked, raising his voice over the muttering. “Who thinks I’m not being _respectful_ enough of Jake Berenson’s speech?”

The disturbance was spreading. Someone at the front of the room asked what was going on over there.

“One of those slugs,” someone said, barely louder than regular conversation. “Get out of here. Not the fucking time.”

“Why not?” Yanzin said. “You people picked the date, aren’t we memorialising here?” He just wanted to hurt somebody, to lash out and feel like he was making an impact on someone, anyone. “Isn’t this international ‘give speeches about the Animorphs’ day? How about this? Jake Berenson is a pawn of the andalites who’s too stupid to see it. He’s just as bloodthirsty and violent as any other wannabe military hero, but he covers it over with talking about peace, and you all buy it and it makes me fucking _sick_.”

“Alright, that’s enough, I think,” he heard from behind him. He turned to see a male human, of a height with Yanzin but broader, standing up from a nearby table. “You should leave.”

“You all think you’re so much better, don’t you?” Yanzin spat. “No wonder you’re the andalites’ precious little pets now. You’re just like them, only without the firepower to back up your arrogance. They’re in love with playing saviour too. You think you won this war with shiny clean hands, don’t you? Don’t you?”

The tall human was manoeuvring around tables and chairs. Yanzin set his feet firmly. “You know what I should do? You know what I –”

He cut off as the stranger grabbed his good arm. Yanzin threw his hand off and swung at him, off balance because of the cast. Cries arose from the people around him.

Quicker than Yanzin could react, the stranger had his arm again, pulling him further off balance and turning him around. He twisted Yanzin’s good arm behind his back, efficiently, and Yanzin was fully expecting things to get worse from there. But the human just gripped him very firmly and began to tow him towards the glass doors that lead outside.

Yanzin kicked and struggled, and once again found that the alcohol seemed to have stolen some of his fine motor control. He managed to hit the human with his cast. “Let go,” he snarled. “Don’t fucking touch me, you – you’re no better than animals, any of you, fucking hosts. We should have melted this planet to glass from fucking orbit when we had the chance!”

“Sorry,” the stranger said to a table of people as he shoved Yanzin past. A couple of drinks were knocked over. “Really sorry. _Shut_ up.”

“Make me, host!” Yanzin braced, and managed to hook a leg around the stranger’s, trying to trip him up.

The human swore and stumbled, but kept his balance. “Trust me, I’m tempted,” he said. He grabbed the casted arm, too, and twisted it back. The pain was a sharp bolt through Yanzin, but it still seemed almost distant.

Somebody else must have opened the door, because the next thing Yanzin knew he was outside, the air cold and damp against his face. They went a few more steps outside and around a corner, and then he was shoved firmly away. He pitched forward onto his face. He was expecting a boot in the ribs, but he didn’t get one.

“You need to go back to wherever you call a home and sober up,” the human told him. “Consider yourself lucky.”

“Lucky? Lucky?” Yanzin gave up on standing and just knelt on the ground, his head hanging. “If one… more _…. human_ tells me how fucking lucky I am, I’m going to get my hands on a weapon and blow all of you to little pieces of floating ash, I swear I’ll-”

“Enough. Go home. Or stick around to see the police someone probably just called on you, I don’t care.”  

“Lucky! Look at how _shaghran_ lucky I am, everybody else is fucking dead but here I am! I get this – this miserable planet, and I get a fake body,  and I get this _dapsen_ ID card – ” He fumbled to get his wallet from his pocket, his vision blurred by tears he hadn’t realised were welling up. He pulled the ID card out and threw it as far away as he could. The rest of the cards followed, and then the wallet. Then his name badge, with the obnoxiously cheerful logo.

It was pathetic and he knew it.

“Is he your friend?” he heard from behind him. James’ voice answered.

“Um. Not really. Kinda. Yeah, I guess so.” A pause, and then a defensive statement. “I’m human. I’m not a yeerk. He just works with me.”

“Right, well, can he be your problem now? Because he’s sure as hell not mine.”  

“Go home,” Yanzin whispered. “R-right. Go home.”

Trouble was, ‘home’ was a nebulous concept. Home wasn’t the homeworld. Home wasn’t the Empire. Home was a little bit the Hork-bajir world, and a little bit the inside of a spaceship. Mostly home was a yeerk pool, any yeerk pool, and Trinir and Essal still being alive.


	8. Mimicry

A phone was waved under his nose, interrupting his thoughts. “Yanzin. Hey.”

He pushed it away. “What? Go away.”

“Yeah, I will,” James said. Yanzin wasn’t really devoting much attention to that kind of thing, but he sounded kind of tired. “Just – you said your housemate had a car, right? Call him and get him to come get you. Or a cab or something. I don’t know.” 

To his surprise, going back to the apartment sounded appealing. Lie down, maybe shower. At least get away from the noise and all the humans and the lights. Suddenly he felt kind of like throwing up. 

He took the phone. James walked away without saying anything else.

Yanzin rubbed at his face with the sleeve of his work shirt, and shifted into a more comfortable sitting position. His hand hovered over the keypad, thinking. He dialled Arodin.

“Yo,” Arodin said when he picked up. There was a lot of noise in the background, people talking and music.

 “Arodin. It’s me,” Yanzin mumbled.

The background music burbled away for a bar or two. “Yanzin? Is that you?” Arodin demanded.

“Yes. Listen, I – I need your help. Can you come and get me?”

“What? From where, home?”

“No.”

“Why are you calling _me_? I’m not the one with the car. Or the driver’s license. Or the delusion that I’m in charge. Is something wrong with you? You sound weird.”

“I – I went out.” Yanzin shot a look at James, standing a little way away as if he was an incredibly poorly trained guard, and let his head sink into his hands. “Arodin, I did something stupid. Please come get me.”

There was a long pause. Yanzin heard someone laughing and asking a question in the background.

“Fine. Tell me where.”

It took Arodin a surprisingly short time to get there – it was only twenty minutes or so before an unfamiliar car pulled up nearby and idled. Yanzin watched it listlessly until the driver door opened and Arodin stood up to gesture at him over the car roof. “Yan! You want this lift or what?”

Yanzin got to his feet, stumbling for the first few steps as feeling came back to his legs.

“Hey. James,” he said hoarsely. His eyes and nose itched. Stupid human reactions.

James’ gaze went to him, and then skittered away again. “What?”

Yanzin held the phone out. “Thanks for the phone call,” he said. “But in future, if you want a pet alien to tag along with you and make you feel tolerant and educated, find a hork-bajir. They’re dumb enough to think it’s a compliment.”

James’ mouth twisted with a mix of emotions. He took the phone back without letting his fingers touch Yanzin’s. “Whatever. Go home.”

Yanzin was already turning away. He didn’t look back at James or the bar as he went to the car and got into the passenger side.

“Holy fuck,” Arodin said as he ducked back in. He smelled like cigarette smoke. “I thought you sounded drunk on the phone. What’s wrong with you? I thought you were going to go straight home tonight.”

“I didn’t know you could drive,” Yanzin said, not particularly caring.

Arodin laughed. “Can I? Yes. Am I allowed to? No. The car is a friend’s, so try not to throw up all over it.”

“Right.”

Arodin gave him a level look across the cab. “How many drinks did you even have? Two? One? You’re two years late to be doing this kind of thing.” He shook his head and shifted the car into gear jerkily.

They drove for a while in silence, until Arodin gave an expansive sigh. “Okay, so I was out of line this morning,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Oh.” Yanzin considered that for a moment. “Okay.”

“If I’d known it was going to contribute to some sort of breakdown, I wouldn’t have said it,” Arodin said. He cocked his head. “Then again, on second thought, maybe I would. Maybe you needed a breakdown. Who knows.”

Yanzin stared out the window and said nothing.

“That sour-faced kid babysitting you on the curb wasn’t your attempt at taking my advice, was it? Making some friends to have your back? Because it doesn’t look like it was going too well.”

“Not really,” Yanzin said dully. “He wouldn’t go away. I think I’ve fixed that now.”

“Well, congratulations,” Arodin said dryly. “I find drinking usually _helps_ me get along with people, but obviously for you it does the opposite.”

Yanzin grunted and didn’t reply. A small group of humans was straggling across the road in front of them; Arodin slowed to let them cross. Orange street lights and the glow spilling out from the buildings they passed obscured the stars.

He turned his head to look at Arodin, who seemed to be driving fairly well. Maybe that meant he was still sober? “Arodin,” he said. “Can you… not tell Minsath about all of this?”

Arodin glanced at him. “Dude, she’s not actually your superior officer, you know.”

Yanzin shrugged, self-consciously. “If she was really my superior I wouldn’t hide things from her.” That wasn’t true; he had lied to plenty of superiors for Essal and Trinir. “It’s just easier not to set her off. Will you keep quiet or not?”

“I would, but there’s no need.  She’s not home. Did you know that Minsath went to a meeting tonight?”

“No?”

Arodin gave a little smile. “Didn’t think you did. That’s why I knew she wouldn’t be able to push me on the whole ‘be back by 7 or you’re grounded’ charade, she’s not there herself.” 

Yanzin frowned. “What sort of meeting?”

“We-ell, given that it’s Minsath we’re talking about, it’s probably not bridge or a book club,” Arodin drawled. “From what I overheard, I suspect it’s a cell of something styling itself as an Empire-in-exile.”

“What?” Yanzin said. Thoughts seemed to move sluggishly through his head. “Why? How come she didn’t tell me?”

Arodin laughed outright. “You? You think she trusts you that much?”

“I guess not.” Yanzin thought for a while. An Empire in Exile? “That sounds like a really bad idea.”

“Nooooo shit.” Arodin swore and fiddled with some of the car’s controls. “It’s pretty small fry, I think. Maybe they’ll blow up a landmark or two. Maybe they’ll just bicker and stockpile stuff and have fun giving each other increasingly complex ranks. Either way, if anybody finds out there’ll be hell to pay.”

Yanzin remembered when not being in favour of the Empire was… not quite unthinkable, but close. The Empire wasn’t something you loved or hated or wanted away from; it just _was_. Might as well rail about water or heat or the Kandrona.

He wondered if it still loomed that large in other people’s heads. If it were just Yanzin who felt the yawning absence of it out here. Why did they think they could replace it by pretending hard enough?

“Sooo,” Arodin said. “Mind if I ask what the stupid thing you did was?”

“Huh?”

“When you called me, you said you’d done something stupid. What was it?”

“Oh.” Yanzin scrubbed a sleeve across his eyes again. “Greatly overestimated my tolerance for humans and thought it’d be a good idea to try interacting with some from work.”

“That’s it?” Arodin seemed almost… disappointed? No, just insistent. “You didn’t, say, go looking for some human with an equally large grudge to pick a fight with? Because –“

Yanzin winced. “No. Of course not.”

“…Because you have to agree, it is a tad suspicious that tonight of all nights you suddenly find yourself with a burning desire to socialise.”

 “Arodin, my arm is in a cast.”

“I hadn’t noticed. I assume you weren’t successful, anyway, because you don’t look like someone who’s had the snot beaten out of him. Recently.”

“I did not go out with the intention of picking fights with humans.”

“Hmmm.” Arodin didn’t sound convinced. He gave Yanzin a searching glance, until an approaching corner made him turn his eyes back to the road. “Listen. About what I said this morning. Believe it or not, I had a point. You need to…” He shook his head. “Yanzin, I don’t know _what_ you need. But you need to do _something_ , because whatever your coping strategy is right now, apparently it’s not working.”

“You are going to lecture me on coping strategies,” Yanzin said flatly. “You.” He found he didn’t have much energy left to be properly angry at Arodin.

Arodin’s jaw tightened. “Hey, think what you like, I’m doing _fine_. I’m doing better than you and the pocket dictator are, that’s for sure.”

“Really,” Yanzin said. “You aren’t slowly killing yourself with addictive substances, then.”

Arodin snickered. “Slowly killing myself? Yan, I had no idea you had such a flair for the dramatic.”

“We nearly took you to hospital that–”

“Just because you’re an intrusive worry wart,” Arodin interrupted, “Doesn’t mean anything about the extent to which I am or am not doing _just fine_. Anyway, I’m not talking about drinking. It’s more the basic mindset.”

Yanzin sighed. He hadn’t exchanged this many words with Arodin in… a long time. Probably they’d said more words to each other today than they had in the entire last six months. He was too tired and queasy to deal with this right now. “And what mindset is that?”

“Acceptance,” Arodin said, staring out the windscreen. “Moving on. Doing _literally anything_ apart from sitting around being angry and miserable at Earth. I mean, our lot sucks now, but give us a decade or two, we’ll make it work. We’ll prove to them that we’re harmless, even useful. Slowly, quietly, non-threateningly, we make ourselves a place.”

“Blending in. I get it.”

“No,” Arodin said sharply. “Not pretending to move on _. Actually_ moving on. Pretending to accept Earth while joining secret clubs to bring about its doom is Minsath’s coping strategy. Mine is to leave the past behind and learn to live in the world we _have_.”

“And that’s working for you, is it?” Yanzin said bitterly. “Come live in humanity’s world. Make yourself into the culture that destroyed your old one. What possible reason would I have to want to be more like you, Arodin? You’re hardly a yeerk anymore.”

Arodin laughed. “Yan, buddy? _Neither are you._ You crawled inside anybody’s ear lately?”

“I still remember what I am,” Yanzin said. “You – with your human friends and your human music, and your… your drugs that change the way you think. You’re losing what you are. What we are.”

Arodin suddenly seemed angry. “I don’t _care._ As far as I’m concerned, that part of me is gone. My original body isn’t ever coming back. So fuck it. Who needs yeerkishness?” He made a violent sweeping-away gesture with one hand. The car veered a little. “It can all go. Who cares.”

“Who cares?” Yanzin looked at him incredulously. “ _Who cares_? You should care! I care!”

“I don’t,” Arodin said. “Sorry if that upsets you. I’m just being practical. There isn’t any going back for us nothlits, Yanzin, you need to realise that. The only place left for us is _here_. I mean, let’s humour Minsath’s worldview for a little bit. Let’s say the Empire rises like a _glorious phoenix_ from the bitter ashes of its defeat. Let’s say this happens next week. What then? You think the yeerks that are still yeerks are gonna welcome us back?”

Yanzin opened his mouth, and then shut it. “They’re our _people,_ ” he said, half-heartedly.

“No. We’re not yeerks anymore. We’re _hosts_.” Arodin gave a half-smile. “Kinda smart of Cassie Taylor, wouldn’t you say? They make us human, and now we have just as much to fear from our old buddies as they do.”

“No, we don’t,” Yanzin said. “We’re not humans. We’ll never be humans. No matter how hard you try, you can never make yourself human enough.”

Arodin was silent for a short while. When Yanzin looked over, he didn’t look upset, just thoughtful. “I know,” he said.

They drove in silence for a while longer, until they turned into the street where they lived. Arodin swung the car in against the curb and put it into neutral.

“Look, don’t mistake my intentions here. I’m not going to make a project out of getting you to sort yourself out.” He shrugged. “Just a friendly heads-up that you don’t seem to be doing too well. That’s all.” 

“That wasn’t really necessary,” Yanzin said.

“No?” Arodin quirked an eyebrow at him, and his mouth seemed to tighten. “Okay. Consider me warned off. We don’t ever have to talk about this again, then.”

Yanzin didn’t know whether he wanted that or not. He patted his pockets absently, and realised that he had thrown everything in them away outside the bar. “I lost my key.”

Arodin fished in a pocket and handed him his own. “You can borrow this if you promise to leave it in my shoe at the back door so I can get in, all right?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Yanzin stared at the key for a few moments, before shaking his head. The sooner this fuzziness went away the better; he hated it. He took a deep breath. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe we aren’t a hundred percent yeerk anymore. But I don’t think that it’s been replaced with humanity.”

“I don’t know what else it would be, then,” Arodin said. “If it makes you feel better, I think yeerks have always been this way. You know. Taking on aspects of other species. What other sapient beings have the ability to literally inhabit others’ minds?”

“So by being less yeerkish, we are being more yeerkish. Great. Thank you,” Yanzin said dryly.

Arodin grinned. “That’s the thing about us yeerks,” he said. “Regardless of what the Empire wanted, that’s what our defining feature is more than martial strength. We’re adaptable. We take situations and materials, and we make the best out of them. It’s not always pretty, but we stay alive. We’re scavengers and parasites. Nothing wrong with it.”

Yanzin stared at his hands. Blocky human hands with squared-off fingernails and soft skin with a dusting of hairs. “I don’t know if that’s what I am. I think I’m… a soldier. I’m not adaptable. I’m not clever. I’m not stealthy.”

“I don’t know, maybe you’ve absorbed a bunch of hork-bajir along the way. Are you getting out of the car?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Yanzin started to climb out of the car, and then hesitated. “Arodin, wait. Instead of me leaving the key out, why don’t you just stay here?”

Arodin shook his head. “Have to return the car, man.”

“Well, come back relatively early and I’ll let you in.”

Aroding smiled lightly. “Butt out, Yanzin, I told you. I’m doing just fine. Get out already or I’ll drive off with you still in here.”

It had been worth a try, he supposed. Yanzin got out of the car and the cold air enfolded him unpleasantly.

He watched Arodin do a rusty three-point turn and drive away with narrowed eyes. He knew he wouldn’t see Arodin back again tonight. Arodin wouldn’t change anything about his habits.

_Doesn’t matter how convincingly he can argue it to you_ , he thought _. It’s still just something he tells himself because it lets him keep on doing what he wants to do anyway._

He left the key by the back door as Arodin had asked.


End file.
